Bitcoin Nears $20, Notorious for Being Unstoppable

Bitcoin Nears $20, and No Government Holds the Key to Stop It

Can Bitcoin be stopped? This question has lingered since the currency's inception and resurfaces now as Bitcoin hovers around $20. A couple of months ago, it traded at $5.88 on Mt. Gox, the largest exchange for this virtual currency. It's not a record high either: in November 2011, it reached $29.58, and a few months prior, it had fallen to $2.14. Nearly fourteen years after that first balance, Bitcoin surpasses $21,000, and the fundamental dilemma remains open.

Why Bitcoin Prices Fluctuate Without Central Control

When prices plummet, the explanation often points to exchange hacks. David Ávila summarized it: fluctuations are largely due to these attacks, not to genuine distrust of Bitcoin. The nuance is important. The asset itself remains the same, the mathematics don't change; what fluctuates is its quotation against the dollar. And that, according to this analysis, is pure speculation on an experimental protocol.

What Happens if Bitcoins Are Lost or Stolen?

The total money supply will never exceed 21 million units, and at the time, just over 10.5 million were in circulation. No one can print them, multiply them through fractional reserve, or dilute existing ones. If some are lost—a hard drive fails without a backup, a forgotten password—the remaining ones gain purchasing power. To secure savings, you don't need to keep the entire file; just extract the private key, print it, and store it in multiple locations. The blockchain is the grand ledger replicated across thousands of computers; if your equipment is stolen, your funds remain active on the network. Import the key into another client, and you're set. There's no central registry or server to shut down.

Can a Government Legally End Bitcoin?

Here lies the vulnerability. A government can declare it illegal, citing money laundering, and prohibit the exchange of dollars for bitcoins and vice versa; it can even pressure allies to do the same. It doesn't require technical destruction: simply causing its value to drop to zero, and a seller panic would do the rest. On the other hand, the cost of attack is considerable: acquiring 25,000 to 30,000 gigahashes per second, with cooling and electricity, to rewrite the chain faster than the entire network. The estimated cost is around $20 million, and if ASICs become involved, the bill multiplies. Buying all the bitcoins is out of the question: those hidden away aren't for sale.

The Money No One Can Print on Their Own

Underlying this is the classic suspicion towards fiat currency. Real power rests on two pillars: issuing and withdrawing money, and storing it with mass acceptance. Bitcoin directly addresses this. Its proponents compare it to the gold standard; its critics, to smoke, a structure that only rewards early adopters and relies on continuous new inflows. Some doubt its utility beyond speculation, while others point out that you can't get a mortgage in bitcoins, and without that, a significant portion of the country won't take it seriously.

Nearly 14 Years Later: $21,000 and the Same Struggle

This is where it gets interesting. The issue returns eleven years later with the same arguments, and Bitcoin now surpasses $21,000, heading towards $27,000. Those who sold early made a 5x or 10x return; those who forgot about their coins and recovered them, even more. Buying was easy. Holding on was difficult. And meanwhile, the network remains without an owner, without a headquarters, and without anyone capable of completely shutting it down.

The only truly decentralized aspect, in the end, is the list of those who claimed to have had it all figured out and have now disappeared.